Elder Law Attorney Charged With Thieving $2 Million of Client Funds Charles Toutant, New Jersey Law Journal A New Jersey attorney was arrested Wednesday on charges of stealing more than $2 million from 10 elderly clients. Barbara Lieberman, 62, of Northfield is alleged to have targeted elderly persons who had substantial assets and no immediate families. The state Attorney General's Office says Lieberman took control of her clients' finances by forging power of attorney or obtaining one on false pretenses. She then added her name to victims' bank accounts or transferred assets into her lawyer trust account. Lieberman was executrix of the wills of some of her clients and continued to siphon off funds from their estates after they died, and she used the stolen funds to pay off credit card debt in excess of $300,000, the attorney general says. Lieberman is charged with first-degree money laundering, second-degree conspiracy and theft by deception. The state froze $5 million in assets she held in various accounts, which it plans to use for restitution. Her case will be presented to a grand jury. She was lodged in jail with bail set at $300,000. According to the state, Lieberman regularly put on seminars on wills, living wills and end-of-life affairs for seniors citizens in Atlantic County. At an event at Jeffries Tower, a senior citizen complex in Atlantic City, she met a woman in her 90s who later became her client. The woman had a son and a daughter but Lieberman refused to discuss the woman's affairs with her children, citing attorney-client privilege. Lieberman stole $320,000 from the woman's estate after her death, the state says. In another case, Lieberman allegedly stole more than $600,000 from a Margate woman in her 90s, using half of it to pay her credit card bills. She also allegedly drafted large checks from the woman's account for personal use. Lieberman further drafted the woman's will, which bequeathed assets to a friend of the woman who had died 11 months before it was executed, the state said. Lieberman is also alleged to have conspired with Jan Van Holt, 57, of Linwood, a former social worker, who was also arrested and charged Wednesday. Van Holt is the owner of "A Better Choice," a company that purportedly offered seniors life care and financial planning, including help with household chores, transportation, paying bills and balancing checkbooks. The state alleges that Lieberman and Van Holt obtained a $195,000 reverse mortgage on the home of a 94-year-old woman from Ventnor, and stole $112,000 in other assets. In other cases, Lieberman and Van Holt allegedly stole more than $500,000 from an Atlantic City woman who died at 91; $487,000 from a Margate couple who died at 81 and 85; $109,000 from a Northfield woman who died at 92; $72,000 from a Northfield woman who died at 85; $25,000 from an Egg Harbor Township woman who died at 90; and $20,000 from an 88-year-old Cape May Court House woman. The defendants' mode of operation was to fund the victim's expenses, sometimes by taking money from other victims, in order to hide their thefts from victims while waiting for them to die, the state says. "We allege that these defendants were wolves in sheep's clothing, entering the lives of their vulnerable victims as caregivers, only to shamelessly steal all they owed," says Elie Honig, director of the Division of Criminal Justice. "It is particularly egregious that Lieberman, a lawyer, and Van Holt, a former social worker, both of whom had careers ostensibly dedicated to helping the elderly, instead would choose to harm them." Lieberman's lawyer, Pleasantville solo Steven Feldman, did not return a reporter's call. Van Holt's lawyer, Haddon Heights solo Murray Sufrin, says he has not yet been formally retained. |